by Janie Chang
A figure stepped through the smoke.
Together, Fox said. We lifted my mother between us and sidled past the blazing center of the room. When we got outside, I gasped gratefully at the fresh air. Gently, we laid my mother down on the paving stones of the courtyard. Fox sank down to the ground and so did I. Only then did I look around.
Gu lay motionless, sprawled by the bamboo garden. Shea was staggering to his feet. He stared at Fox, at her amber eyes shining through a soot-smudged face, at her tunic and trousers in autumn hues. She panted, pink tongue and white teeth showing, blood smeared across her nose and cheeks.
There was a crashing sound from the main house. The posts and beams holding up the roof had weakened from the heat. The air in the courtyard was choking me, as if the smoke was trapped within its walls. I began coughing again. From outside the walls I could hear shouts of “Fire!”
“We must get away from the smoke,” Shea said, his voice calm and authoritative, a voice trained to take control in emergencies.
He scooped up my mother as though she were no heavier than a bundle of rags. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll return for Gu when you and . . . when you’re both safely out.”
I knelt down beside Fox. “Are you all right?” I asked, my eyes watering from the smoke.
She sat up and nodded. Suddenly her body stiffened. Even though she was in human form, I could almost see her ears pricking forward. She was staring past me, at the rock garden.
The arch in front of the rock garden shimmered. The Door was opening, its glowing edges growing more and more distinct as the gap widened. It was larger than I remembered. Beyond the door was an orchard in full flower. I saw the fresh green of new leaves and a froth of pink and white. It was a vision of springtime so intense it seemed distilled from a thousand years’ worth of springtimes, eternal and constant.
Behind me, a hoarse gasp from Shea.
The Door was now wide open and the entire courtyard radiant with sunlight pouring out from the portal. A breeze blew in from that other world, carrying with it the scent of peach blossom. It pushed the smoke away from us, back toward the burning building. Music floated through the courtyard. “Full of Joy.”
The roar of flames, the crash of timbers falling down, the heat and noise—they all receded. We were mesmerized by the portal.
“What . . . what is it?” Shea croaked. His gaze was fixed on the scene beyond the door.
“It’s the Door, an entrance to the land of immortals,” I said. “Where Anna went.”
Jialing. Fox was in her animal shape again, her body wriggling with excitement. It’s wide, wide open. Who knows how many it will let through this time? Hurry! Let’s bring your mother with us.
“You go first, Fox,” I said. “You can’t give up your chance again.”
Then you must decide quickly, before I leave, Fox said. Just in case you don’t get through. Do you stay as a human or as a Fox?
To slip through crowds unseen in the daytime, then run at night beneath moonlight and clouds. To be free of the fear of hunger, the encumbrance of illness. To shape my features so that I would never again hear the taunts of zazhong. To dazzle any man and make him love me. The conquest of the unreal over the real.
I could help Anjuin. I could find some way to give her a better life.
I could go to Manchuria and find Wan Taiyong. I remembered the rush of triumph that had surged through my veins when Liu Sanmu looked at me, his eyes widening in desire and confusion. It would be the same with Taiyong. He would love me. I would never worry about losing him. Except to death.
How many different kinds of pain can there be?
For Anjuin, when I knew I had lost her friendship, it had been a sharp sensation in my chest, like citrus squeezed onto a cut.
For my mother, since I had known she would die, a long, slow slicing pain through the center of my heart.
For Taiyong, it was a relentless throbbing ache that filled my entire being each morning, from the instant I woke up to when my swollen eyelids closed in the darkness of my bed, and all the murky restless hours in between.
If I lived for hundreds of years, how many more people would I love, how much pain would I endure when they died?
Slowly, I shook my head. The moment I made my decision, Fox knew. She pressed herself against my ankles, her body trembling with eagerness. This time she didn’t hesitate.
Good-bye, Jialing. She sprang through the door, a blur of autumn colors.
On the other side, a woman knelt on grass as bright as jade. Her back was to me. She stood up, her robes falling in silken folds, garments that been out of style for three hundred years. She glanced over her shoulder and I caught a flash of green in her eyes before she turned and walked away under the rows of peach trees, into eternal springtime.
The Door stayed invitingly open.
“I thought you were talking about a fairy tale.” Shea stood beside me, his voice ragged, incredulous. He was still holding my mother in his arms. “But how can I believe Anna is over there when I saw her body?”
“The body is only a shell, Mr. Shea,” I said. “She’s there, safe on the other side. Anna went through, as Fox did just now.”
“A Fox spirit. From a Chinese folktale.” His voice shook. “What am I supposed to believe?”
“Believe that Anna isn’t gone. Believe that she’s there, on the other side of the portal. Believe that the gods are giving you a chance to go through and find her.” The Door would let him in. Somehow I knew this.
“In our fairy tales, there’s always a price to pay when mortals enter an enchanted land.” He straightened his shoulders. “But if Anna’s there, I’ll go. If there’s a price to pay, I’ll be the one to pay it.”
The outlines of the door began to shimmer.
“Go then,” I said. “Quickly, Mr. Shea. And take my mother with you.”
He nodded and took a deep breath. He marched through the door, his steps firm, a soldier on his way to battle.
As soon as he crossed the threshold, all the soot and dirt on his clothing vanished. He put my mother down on the grass. He gazed around and without turning to look behind, he strode out of sight.
The door was now more than halfway shut but it had become translucent and I could see my mother in the shimmering light of the orchard. She sat up and turned around and I saw that she was young again, her features free of pain, as lovely as in my memories. Her smile was unrestrained and joyful. Her smile invited me to cross the threshold.
I shook my head. The Door wouldn’t let any more people through. I could feel it.
“You’ve suffered enough for three lifetimes, Mama,” I said. “You deserve to go through. But I want to live at least one lifetime in this world. I’ll be all right.”
There was nothing to forgive, nothing to explain. Her love washed over me to erase all the years that had come between us.
Then the Door closed and light drained from the courtyard.
THE KITCHEN WAS starting to catch fire as I ran behind its back wall. I veered to the right and dashed through the narrow strip of garden at the very back of the property. Sparks were falling, but I ducked beneath the spindly fruit trees. Their branches caught the red-hot specks before they could singe me, but their bare brown twigs would soon succumb to the falling embers. Cries from the courtyard told me rescuers had entered the courtyard and found Gu’s unconscious body.
Pushing open the secret door, I emerged at the back of the Central Residence. The shed on the other side had been torn down and the door was clearly visible, a secret no longer. But my escape went unnoticed because there were no workers at the construction site. They’d all gone to watch the fire.
Dragon Springs Road was filled with curious bystanders. I walked out, head down, face streaked with soot. I could tell from excited comments that the fire had spread and workers had given up their haphazard attempts to save a place that was supposed to be torn down anyway.
There was nothing of my life there now.
I would never return to Dragon Springs Road.
CHAPTER 24
When I boarded the train at the Shanghai North Railway Station that day, my only thought was to escape from Sanmu and Fourth Uncle, to put some distance between us. Surely, in a country the size of China, with all its upheavals and territorial disputes, I could manage to disappear. With or without Wan Taiyong’s help.
My thoughts gained clarity as the miles unfurled. Nanking, my first destination, was only two hundred miles away from Shanghai. Then Peking, more than nine hundred miles away from Shanghai. Harbin, another eight hundred miles from Peking.
I traveled third-class. With my grimy face and dirt-streaked clothing, a scarf tied over my hair, I was just another poor passenger. My fellow travelers stared out the windows, played games of dice, and fed their children. Those new to the landscape expressed their dismay as the train took them farther and farther from the homes they knew, covering distances greater than they had ever traveled. The immensity of the terrain before them was unfathomable. I could see it in their eyes.
Those who had made the trip before turned their backs, no longer interested in the scenery, looking for ways to pass the long hours. I pretended to sleep on the hard bench seats, head thrown back like the other travelers, a scarf over my face to indicate I didn’t want to be disturbed. The satchel tucked firmly behind my back held all my possessions.
Before I left Shanghai, I had bought a sheet of paper and an envelope from a letter writer near the train station.
Dear Sanmu:
I am reminding you of your promise to find a husband for Anjuin.
Master Yang now runs a dry goods store in Changchow. You can ask Dajuin where it is. You’ve said you have relatives in Changchow and would use your connections there.
Sanmu, I beg of you this one last kindness. If you have even the faintest memory of affection for me, please help Anjuin. It is the only favor I will ever ask of you, for as long as I live.
Jialing
It was a letter I could’ve penned and posted any time before my last day at Yuyang Lane. I addressed it to his office. I had to believe that Sanmu could be trusted to keep his word. I did believe. Perhaps one day Anjuin would find it in her heart to forgive me, to recognize how young we had been when we quarreled. It was too much to hope that I might meet her again and rekindle our friendship. I couldn’t imagine how that would be possible now that I had fled Shanghai. It was enough to imagine her smiling and content, surrounded by her own children.
AT STATIONS ALONG the way, I bought food from vendors, using my coins as sparingly as possible. I bought only steamed bread and fruit, a paper twist of tea. I always bought a newspaper though, anything from Shanghai. They were inevitably a few days old.
Finally, I saw the news I’d been waiting to read.
TWO DEAD IN EXTERNAL ROADS AREA FIRE
Two bodies have been recovered from the burned wreckage of an abandoned home at 21 Dragon Springs Road, in the External Roads area. The house belonged to the Liu Family Real Estate Company. Rescuers also found a man unconscious and injured on the property. He has been identified as Gu Hong, a professional bodyguard.
One of the bodies has been identified as that of Robert Shea, a private investigator. His car was found outside the property and witnesses saw him enter the gates.
The other body, of a woman, is yet to be positively identified, but from the jewelry found on the body there is good reason to believe it is that of Zhu Jialing, missing since the day of the fire. Witnesses saw both Zhu and Shea get out of Shea’s car and enter the gates.
The body is only a shell, Fox had said when Anna’s body was found. Why the gods chose to discard her body at Yung An Cemetery is not for me to guess.
Why the gods chose to place my mother’s body and Shea’s inside the burning building was not for me to guess either. But I was grateful for the deception it offered. My jade bracelet had deceived Sanmu into believing it was my body they’d found.
With Shea gone, Fourth Uncle had nothing left to fear. There was no one to carry on the investigation, no one who cared enough to look into Wan Baoyuan’s death, Mr. Shih’s murder, or the woman known as Ping Mei.
Before I fled the Western Residence, I had crouched beside the hydrangea shrubs and reached inside Fox’s den to retrieve the small cache of money hidden there. Groping for the cloth bag, my fingers had brushed against a lifeless form, the fur still warm. I stroked it gently between the ears before withdrawing my hand. The gods had chosen to place the husk of Fox’s body in her den.
Had I made a different decision, Fox would’ve conferred her powers on me, a final gift before she crossed to a land where they were unnecessary. If I’d taken Fox’s powers, I wouldn’t be worried about my welcome in Harbin. Even if Wan Taiyong had read my telegram with indifference, I would’ve searched for him, made him love me.
But it would’ve been a meaningless love, as artificial as a pine tree cultivated in a shallow basin, any wayward emotion, any deviation from passion pruned and wired, shaped to create an imitation of love. The unreal in the real.
If I’d taken Fox’s powers, I could’ve wandered anywhere in China, altered my features, prodded minds to give me unquestioning acceptance. This was the most tempting of all. As a Fox I could’ve denied my true appearance. But I would’ve always felt ashamed, ashamed to think of Leah and Grace battling the humiliation of being treated as zazhong through all the years of their lives, Leah fierce and Grace accepting.
If I’d taken Fox’s powers, I could’ve lived for hundreds of years, known and loved many people. But then I would’ve had to watch them die of illness or old age. How many different kinds of pain can there be? How much loss can the human heart endure?
I knew why those other Foxes, once human, had wanted to die. Their hearts had remained human even though they wielded the powers of a Fox. They were ready to die because they had lost too many loved ones over the centuries, because they had suffered such an accumulation of blows to the heart that all love had been beaten out of them, all joy turned to ash.
It was better to tread my own path in life as a human.
CHAPTER 25
At the train station in Peking, I found my way to the station’s telegraph office.
Then I boarded the South Manchuria Railway, a Japanese-owned line that ran between Peking and Harbin. I finally felt safe enough to take advantage of my first-class ticket and enjoyed a compartment to myself. The attendant brought a kettle of hot water, and I gave him some coins for a few packets of tea leaves. In solitary luxury for the first time in five days, I locked the door of the compartment and washed myself in the tiny bathroom. I slept soundly for hours.
Then the morning sun warmed its way through the thin curtains, and I awoke to the splendor of a lonely landscape.
The train traveled northeast through the great central plains, where fields newly tilled for millet and sorghum spread across endless flats of yellow soil. The plains were shaded here and there by thickets of deciduous trees. These gave way to landscapes barren of crops, rolling and rocky hills. Small streams cut through the terrain, their steep banks revealing hard, pale earth beneath a deceptively lush layer of grass.
I saw the terrain as Fox would’ve seen it, as she had taught me to see it, noticing the things that mattered to her. I saw stands of birches and pines, oaks and poplars, recognized trees by the shape of their canopies and the flutter of their leaves in the wind.
I caught glimpses of deer, nervous herds tucked into notches between hills. I sensed smaller creatures—marmots, hares, and rodents—hidden in their burrows waiting for the safety of night. When the wind parted meadows of feathergrass, I spied families of brown-eared pheasants gleaning for seeds and insects.
Almost always the hard blue sky yielded sightings of a lone hawk circling overhead, power and patience in the slow tilt of its wings. At twilight, a sudden flutter of movement disturbed the sunset as starlings settled on branches.
While everyone else slept at ni
ght, lulled by the steady, swaying motion of the train, I stood by the window to watch the moon keep pace with the train. What would it be like to set out toward that horizon with Wan Taiyong, to wade through that windblown landscape together? What did it feel like for a bird the first time it stepped off the nest, trusting in updrafts and hollow bones to keep it aloft?
Your lineage doesn’t matter to me, Taiyong had written. Harbin is a city of refugees and émigrés. You would not be the first to go there to escape your past, and no one will ask, including me.
My heart outraced the rhythmic grinding of the train’s wheels as Harbin drew closer. The outskirts of the city loomed, and then they filled my window, the derelict buildings and run-down houses I’d come to expect at the fringes of every town.
Then the train slowed, and the streets of Harbin came into view, busy with automobiles and coaches, the sidewalks as crowded as any in Shanghai. I fought the urge to jump off the train before it reached the station, to walk away and vanish into the throng. What would I find in this new city?
Dozens of flags decorated the roof of the train station, the multicolored stripes of the republic and the yellow banner of the Fengtian clique. On the platform, I saw as many foreign faces as Chinese ones, perhaps more. From carriage windows, passengers leaned out to wave and shout, but I merely pushed down my window to look out. The chilling wind that blew in drove all warmth from the little compartment.
All along the platform, beggars and touts assaulted travelers in a babble of languages, cries for charity, offers to carry luggage, promises of comfortable lodgings. I looked for a tall, slim figure, but no one raised a hand to wave at me, no one hurried across the platform to my window. He wasn’t there.
I kept looking, even though the cold bit through my thin coat. The other passengers withdrew from their windows and I watched them descend from the train. I fought down disappointment, tried to ignore the terror tracing its way down my spine. Beyond Harbin, where could I go? Korea? Japan? I turned my back on the platform.